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Keep the butter out of your belly and your shovel out of the sand

Screen shot of the Washington
Department of Health Shellfish Safety map for Kitsap County for
August 3rd, 2011.

Thanks to Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) toxins produced by
microscopic marine algae… King and east Kitsap Counties are closed
to harvest of all shellfish species including clams and geoduck,
oysters, mussels, and other invertebrates such as the moon snail
(which are no longer legally harvestable anyway).

The meat from crabs is not known to contain the PSP toxin. The
guts (butter) can contain PSP levels that are not safe, so
carefully clean your crabs and toss the guts. (I guess I’d better
stop letting the chickens gobble the guts lest I wake up to a
poultry Jonestown.)

Invasive purple varnish (mahogany) clams hold the toxin longer
than any other bivalve in the region. Butter clams also hold onto
the toxin for longer than most shellfish. Sometimes shorelines will
be closed to varnish clam only or to both species only, so read the
health maps and warnings carefully. Even when beaches are open,
it’s a good idea to cut off the black tip of the butter clam’s
siphon before eating it since toxins are concentrated in the
tip.

Washington Sea Grant also has a really great publication called
Gathering Safe Shellfish: Avoiding Paralytic
Shellfish Poisoning. The document has lots of great info
and fabulous black and white drawings of some of the harvested
shellfish species in the Salish Sea (great identification
resource). It also discusses the difference between the striking
blooms you may see and those creating biotoxins.

This too shall pass. In the meantime… enjoy the the beaches in
Puget Sound’s Main Basin, but but keep the butter out of your belly
and your shovel out of the sand.